The Giver


The Giver

Our first Christmas party this season is this Saturday night.  There is a white elephant gift exchange that night, and my wife, ever the faithful shopper has already purchased our gifts.  That seems incongruous, I know, as white elephant gifts by their very definition are supposed to be stuff one is more than willing to be rid of.  So, my wife bought more stuff to give away.  Actually, our gifts came from the church garage sale, proceeds benefitting the construction of a new foyer for the church.  So, we took our old stuff, transported it to the church, sold our old stuff, and a ton of other folk’s stuff to benefit the congregation.  That not being enough, we bought some other folk’s stuff, proceeds benefitting the church, to give away at a Christmas party, so that someone else might have the joy of getting rid of that very same stuff at some future point.  I’m not sure, but I believe there was some sort of altruistic logic in all of that.  However, it does make you wonder at the affluence among Americans that we have an entire multi-billion dollar industry forever churning through stuff.  That, I think, will be fodder for another blog.

We start this weekend on what I believe will be an unusual Christmas series.  There will be little, if any, of the traditional manger scene, Jesus, Joseph and Mary.  Instead, we will concentrate on the Giver of all god things – God, the Father.  The truth is that He has been presenting us with fantastic gifts since the beginning of time.  Life, mercy and grace have been around for a long, long time.  We no longer have the Garden of Eden, but this old world and the universe around her are pretty spectacular gifts.  Any negatives, come not from God, but the consequences of our sins.  As a matter of fact, this idea of the Giver of all good things is nothing new, James saw it some two millennia before we came around:

James 1:16-18(NIV)
16Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers.  17Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.  18He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.  

The series is titled, “A John 3:16 Christmas.”  Life, mercy, grace have been around for a long time.  Yes, we lost Eden, but because God loves humanity to the extent He sacrificed His perfect Son, we one day enter His mansion as God’s adopted children.  We get a new heaven and a new earth, and we live in a holy city, not just a garden.  We are so cluttered with stuff, and re-gifting stuff I think we miss the big picture of just how giving our God is, has been and forever will be.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Despair

Image
Despair A friend died last week.  Let me clarify that...a friend took his life on Friday.  He left behind a beautiful family - wife, five children, loving parents.  They are left angry, grief-stricken, hurting and perhaps the cruelest blow of all - questioning with no hope of answers.  Friends and acquaintances are no better off.  This man was a leader within the church, a worship minister, a shepherd and one who helped others.  What could bring a man who believed in the Eternal, and hope for believers in Him for eternity, to the point of self destruction? Pain. Despair. However, that is only supposition.  That is the cruelty for those left behind by suicide.  Picking up the pieces and questions without any answers.  The answers, what few we can get, come from those who have been close, but not successful in their suicides.  They can help...a little. Pain.  Physical pain can be the basis, but the real culprit is a p...
Read more

Sleepless

Image
March 1, 2016 Sleepless I woke up at 2:30 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep.  This happens every so often.  My wife also struggles with sleeplessness.  After several minutes of restless tossing and turning.  Well, the reality is, after about an hour I picked up my Kindle and opened my Bible software program.  It delivers a daily Bible verse.  That's it above.  Normally, a little Bible reading and prayer and I'm off to sleep.  Not this time.  That's due in great part to the passage above.  It's Philippians 2:8.  It's bad enough that the passage was Philippians - one of my treasured studies.  It's from the second chapter of Philippians.  To make matters worse, it's from the first half of the chapter.  If the quote had been verses 19 and 20, I probably would have drifted off to sleep as normal, Verses 19 and 20 are about Timothy, and Paul says of him, "I have no one like him."  I like that.  I...
Read more

Lenten Poem XV

Image
Inspired by the work of Andrew Roycroft (pastor and poet from Northern Ireland), I am attempting to offer Lenten poems in the style of medieval poets writing thirty-three poems, each thirty-three words long; one word for each year of Jesus' life.  Collectively, they serve as commentary on the life of Jesus, focusing on His final week.  Blessings. “ While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus asked him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him. Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, “Am I leading a rebellion, t...
Read more